Tuesday, January 12, 2016

- Orange again

Addendum: after writing the post below, we had dinner with my daughter's family. G has the best seat in the house, looking out the dining room window. As the meal wound down, he exclaimed, "I see the moon!"

Sure enough, a waxing crescent was sinking into the early evening west. Patch #12 has been revised accordingly, albeit one day late ...

Patch #12 redux

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I was thinking I would make an orange patch each day we watch three-year-old grandson G (yep, that's actually one of his nicknames).

We're a day earlier than usual this week since he was diagnosed with strep throat yesterday. So we got up at 5:00 and drove into Austin just as dawn was breaking on the horizon ...

Patch #12

It seemed like the light was radiating up, but this stitch didn't quite capture what I was after. No matter ... there will be other sunrises and sunsets this year, so I'll look toward to seeing how many ways I can interpret them in cloth.

Interestingly, my camera is having a hard time dealing with this intense orange, so I tried stepping away from it ...

Add caption

Okay, nuff said on that. Here's another look back at Christmas:

"What about making a gingerbread house? Do you still have the pattern?" my older daughter texted as we planned for the arrival of her younger sister and family for Christmas.

"On it!" I replied.

No, I didn't have the old recipe and template, but I had the Internet. That and an idea to make smaller houses, one for each three-year-old grandson. I couldn't wait.

After looking at scads of designs, I picked the simplest I could find and made a mock-up scaled so the pieces would fit on my baking sheets ...

along with a frame to ensure the gingerbread could be rolled to a consistent thin-ness ...

I followed a recommendation to use the gingerbread recipe from the most recent Joy of Cooking. It worked well enough, but didn't taste great, so I think I'll use my grandmother's ginger snap recipe next year. In any case, I whipped up one batch, which was just enough to cover two cookie sheets ...

While the gingerbread baked, I made more bases so the houses would be sturdy and the boys wouldn't have to worry about being careful ...

And when the gingerbread came out of the oven, I cut it to plan ...

let it cool a bit, then stuck the pieces to the bases with royal icing (made with pasteurized egg whites) ...

There were gaps once the houses were assembled, but I figured they could be filled with icing to serve as decorating opportunities ...

This year the gingerbread dough tasted much better than the baked version ... next year I'm thinking my grandmother's ginger snaps will solve that problem so we can eat the houses. But no doubt about it, more of the candy ended up on waistlines instead of rooflines!

Artist websites

The Peace Pin Project

Click the peace pin picture to learn how the project began. To see more images of the original pins, which were sent to more than 70 individuals in half a dozen countries and 19 states in the US, scroll down to the INDEX and click on the PEACE PIN PROJECT link.

Mo's Project: "I dream of a world where love is the answer"

A collaborative effort in which creative souls around the world are making talismans to be stitched onto the branches of a dreaming tree. Just click the picture to see Mo's blog posts that will ultimately lead to her "Braille of the Soul" show at Artsite in March 2019. My contribution to the project can be tracked by going to the INDEX (below) and clicking on the link "I dream of a world where love is the answer."

Blanco River Monument Project

To learn more about the project go to http://www.blancorivermonument.com/ ... to read more on this blog, click the image.

The Hearts for Charleston Quilt Project

Click on the heart image (above) to see posts about the Hearts for Charleston project on Dee Mallon's blog. To see posts on this blog, click the Hearts for Charleston link in the INDEX.

It's a long way from Williamsburg, Virginia to the Texas Hill Country, but I've never looked back. Instead, my days are full of stitching, natural dyeing, assemblage art appreciation, grandparenting, cactus whacking, Americana music and Tex-Mex cooking ... not to mention wildflowers and critters.
As local bard Robert Earl Keen says, "The road goes on forever & the party never ends."